1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to wireless communications, and more specifically to a wireless communication device that is capable of reduced power consumption.
2. Related Art
Wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones to provide an example, are becoming commonplace in both personal and commercial settings. The wireless communication devices provide users with access to all kinds of information. For example, a user can access the internet through an internet browser on the device, download miniature applications (e.g., “apps”) from a digital marketplace, send and receive emails, or make telephone calls using a voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Consequently, wireless communication devices provide users with significant mobility, while allowing them to remain “connected” to communication channels and information.
Wireless communication devices communicate with one or more other wireless communication devices or wireless access points to send and receive data. Typically, a first wireless communication device generates and transmits a radio frequency modulated with encoded information. This radio frequency is transmitted into a wireless environment and is received by a second wireless communication device. The second wireless communication device demodulates and decodes the received signal to obtain the information. The second wireless communication device may then respond in a similar manner. The wireless communication devices can communicate with each other or with access points using any well-known modulation scheme, including simple amplitude modulation (AM), simple frequency modulation (FM), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), phase shift keying (PSK), quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), and/or orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), as well as any other communication scheme that is now, or will be, known.
Over the years, in an effort to make wireless communication devices more portable, wireless communication devices have shrunk in both size and weight. As a consequence of portability, such devices must rely on a limited power supply (i.e., a battery) despite becoming increasingly complex and power-hungry, and must maintain low heat dissipation for handheld and travel use. Thus, significant efforts have been made to reduce power consumption in wireless communication devices in order to maximize battery life and reduce heat dissipation. As portable devices have shrunk, power consumption has been reduced primarily by reducing operating voltages of digital components, and by converting power-inefficient analog components to similar digital components.
However, many analog components, such as radio receivers/transmitters and analog front-end (AFE), do not scale with technology and cannot be converted into digital components—or can only be converted with significant performance sacrifices. For example, an analog radio receiver operates at full-power even under good signal conditions because there is no way to predict operating conditions that would enable reduced operating power. Further, although a digital implementation of a radio receiver exists, the digital implementation has performance limitations that render it insufficient for many communication conditions. Thus, the power consumption of analog components substantially affects the power consumption, and therefore the portability, of a wireless communication device.
Consequently, there is a need for a wireless communication device that can effectively reduce power consumption of its analog components without sacrificing performance. Further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description that follows.
The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number.